Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

phishing and spoofing 369Jones, William. Personal Information Management. Seattle: Universityof Washington Press, 2007.Lineberger, Michael. Total Workday Control: Using Microsoft Outlook.San Ramon, Calif.: New Academy Publishers, 2006.“Over 160 Free Personal Information Managers.” Available online.URL: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/over-160-freepersonal-information-managers.html.Accessed August 17,2007.philosophical and spiritualaspects of computingWhen modern digital computing emerged in the 1940s, itevolved from two roots: engineering (particularly electricalengineering) and mathematics. The goals of the earliest computerdesigners were focused naturally enough on computing,although several early thinkers (see Bush, Vannevar;Shannon, Claude; and Turing, Alan) had already begunto think of computers as symbol-processing and knowledgeretrievingmachines, not just number crunchers.As computer scientists began to become more concernedabout the structure of data and the modeling of real-worldobjects in computer languages (see object-oriented programming),they began to wrestle with some areas longfamiliar to philosophers. As data structure involved intoknowledge representations, epistemology (the philosophicalinvestigation of the meaning and accessibility of knowledge)became more relevant, particularly in developingsystems for artificial intelligence and machine learning.Also relevant is ontology (the nature and relationship ofentities—see ontologies and data models), particularlywith regard to the modern effort to encode relationshipsbetween items of knowledge into Web pages (see semanticWeb).The Computer as Philosophical LaboratoryBeyond investigating the potential for applying philosophicalideas to knowledge engineering, many philosophershave also taken increasing notice of the possibilities thatartificial intelligence, highly complex dynamic structures(particularly the Internet), and human-computer interactionoffer for investigating long-standing and often seeminglyintractable philosophical problems.One of the knottiest problems is the nature of somethingthat people experience during every waking moment—consciousness,that awareness of being an “I” or “self” that isexperiencing both an inner world of memories and thoughtsand the outer world conveyed by the senses. One reasonwhy the problem of consciousness is so difficult to resolveis that cognitive scientists and philosophers lack the abilityto compare human consciousness with other possibleconsciousness. (Some “higher” animals may be consciousin some sense, but they cannot tell us about it.) However,as AI programs attempt to model aspects of human cognition,they can help us find similarities and possible differencesbetween the way computers and people “think.” Ofcourse philosophers take a wide variety of positions on thequestion of whether there is anything ultimately distinctiveabout what we call consciousness, and whether computersor robots might someday become truly conscious. (Forexamples of differing views see Dreyfus, Hubert; Kurzweil,Raymond; and McCarthy, John.)Finally, a number of writers have related developmentsin modern computing to ultimate philosophical or spiritualconcerns. For example, the World Wide Web can be comparedto the world-girdling “noosphere” of evolving knowledgedescribed by theologian-paleontologist Pierre Teilhardde Chardin in the mid-20th century. Thus there has beenconsiderable speculation (and perhaps hype) about a newform of collective consciousness emerging through theinteraction of people as well as increasingly intelligent programson the Net. On the other hand, the experience ofimmersive online environments (see online games andvirtual reality) revisits a question that goes back to Descartesin the 17th century—whether what we perceive asreality might actually be an illusion—and this questionresonates with the works of Western Gnostics and EasternBuddhists, not to mention Hollywood’s The Matrix.The dialog among philosophy, spiritual practice, andthe rapidly changing computer world is likely to remainfascinating.Further ReadingDavis, Erik. Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age ofInformation. New York: Harmony Books, 1998.Floridi, Luciano. Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction. NewYork: Routledge, 1999.———, ed. Philosophy of Computing and Information. Malden,Mass.: Blackwell, 2004.Foerst, Anne. God in the Machine: What Robots Teach Us aboutHumanity and God. New York: Dutton, 2004.Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies inCybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1999.International Association for Computing and Philosophy. Availableonline. URL: http://www.ia-cap.org/. Accessed November6, 2007.Irwin, William. The Matrix and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court,2002.Tetlow, Philip. The Web’s Awake: An Introduction to the Field of WebScience and the Concept of Web Life. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley,2007.phishing and spoofingJust about anyone with an e-mail account has received messagespurporting to be from a bank, a popular e-commercesite such as Amazon or eBay, or even a government agency.Typically the message warns of a problem (such as a suspendedaccount) and urges the recipient to click on a linkin the message. If the user does so, what appears to looklike the actual site of the relevant institution is actually a“spoof,” or fake site. If the user goes on to enter informationsuch as account numbers or passwords in order to fixthe “problem,” the information actually goes to the operatorof the fake site, where it can be used for fraudulent purchasesor even impersonation (see identity theft). Thebogus site can also attempt to download viruses, spyware,keyloggers, or other forms of “malware” to the unwittinguser’s computer.